Call me the Red Barren, because my damage indicators are constantly flashing, and I produce no meaningful results on my flight team. But that doesn’t stop me from enjoying World of Warplanes.

Released on Nov. 13 after more than a year of beta, the free-to-play flight combat action game from the makers of World of Tanks follows the “simple to learn, difficult to master” paradigm. This differs significantly from a traditional flight simulator’s “difficult to learn, simple to give up on” paradigm, but WoWP is by no means a flight simulator. Sure, the developers made some efforts to that end, but ultimately, WoWP leans far more toward arcade fun over realistic sim, a move that opens up the game’s potential audience — while alienating the hardcore flight sim fans.

WoWP features over 100 vehicles from various nations, each of which falls into one of three categories: fighters, heavy fighters, or ground-attack planes. Fighters are lightweight, highly mobile dogfighters; ground-attack planes are flying tanks; heavy fighters walk the line between the two. Each nation has its own tech tree of planes to unlock, starting with flimsy biplanes at Tier I and progressing up to high-tech jets at Tier X.

The plane models look good, especially for a free-to-play game, and a matchmaking system ensures that all planes in a given fight are of similar Tiers. Within each tier, every plane is different: some have more hit points, some deal more damage, some are faster, some are more meneuverable, and so on. Selecting a plane is a matter of deciding what you want to prioritize based on your personal skill set. The ability to admire every plane you’ve unlocked in your hangar serves as an incentive to collect them all.

Apart from a simple training mode, WoWP offers only one game mode: 15-on-15 team combat. To win, your team must either eliminate all enemy planes or gain “superiority” by … killing many enemy planes and objective ground targets.

The training mode consists of four singleplayer missions, as per a recent content update, that instruct players in the most rudimentary of the game’s mechanics. While certainly helpful — I didn’t know how to bomb a ground target until I played the training mission — I would like to see more advanced scenarios in the future that allow players to apply what they’ve learned without being handheld every step of the way.

The developers wanted to ensure that the controls felt just right to everyone, and as such offer a number of control schemes: mouse, joystick, keyboard, and gamepad. I stuck with the mouse setup and found the controls to be simple and intuitive.

Combat itself has a nice arcade feel to it. You don’t need an engineering degree to operate one of these aircraft; you steer, you shoot, and you don’t worry your head over the physics. A target lead indicator shows where you should aim to compensate for momentum, so at its most basic, combat consists of aligning your crosshair with the indicator and holding down the left mouse button.

Engagement speeds seem unrealistically slow, however. Two aircraft approaching each other at a combined speed of a few hundred miles per hour feels like it should happen much faster. Then again, this may have been a design decision to sacrifice realism in the name of fun — how fun is it to zoom by an enemy craft with only a fraction of a second to take it down?

Now, as with any F2P game with microtransactions, an important discussion point is whether WoWP is “pay-to-win.” Do players who invest real money have an advantage over others? In a way, yes. Spending money on the game will allow you to progress faster than other players — you will unlock planes and level up more rapidly. That said, holding a “Premium Account” does not offer a competitive advantage over other players, simply a convenience advantage. If you use a high-level plane, you’ll be matched up against other players who have high-level planes. If those players “grinded” their way to the plane without paying, then they’ll likely have an advantage over the paying player due to having invested more time in learning the game.

World of Tanks veterans will be happy to note that Premium Accounts are unified across both titles, as are currencies. Have you already unlocked every tank? Well, use all your saved up credits to get a head start in WoWP.

At E3 2012, Wargaming.net CEO Victor Kislyi explained that a real challenge for the dev team was to find a balance between casual fun and hardcore realism. It seems that fun won out, and I think that was the right move. WoWP isn’t a sim, and it doesn’t have to be. Hardcore flight sim fans likely won’t appreciate this game, but there are other games out there for them. Someone with zero simulated flight training can pick up WoWP and instantly have fun.

Ultimately, World of Warplanes is a nice diversion, but its ability to hook you will depend on how long the game’s only mode can hold your interest. With such little variety, the game caters mostly to a competitive audience of gamers who enjoy building up their skill by playing the same thing over and over again. But with it being free to play, there’s no harm in trying it out to see if it’s for you.

]]>http://www.gamefront.com/world-of-warplanes-impressions/feed/2Test Fly World of Warplanes For a Chance to Win an Alienware PChttp://www.gamefront.com/test-fly-world-of-warplanes-for-a-chance-at-a-pc/
http://www.gamefront.com/test-fly-world-of-warplanes-for-a-chance-at-a-pc/#commentsMon, 23 Dec 2013 14:36:20 +0000Mike Sharkeyhttp://www.gamefront.com/?p=257822After conquering the land of free-to-play in tanks, Wargaming has set its on the skies. World of Warplanes is now...

After conquering the land of free-to-play in tanks, Wargaming has set its on the skies. World of Warplanes is now open to all, and Wargaming is dangling a PC-sized carrot to entice you to take it for a test flight.

Here’s the deal: complete World of Warplanes’ four training missions anytime between now and January 5th and you’ll be entered to win an Alienware Aurora gaming PC. There’s only one PC being given away to the grand prize winner, so your chances are of the struck-by-lightning variety. But hey, they’re better than the odds if you don’t play at all, and Warplanes is actually a fun little dogfighter. You do have a slightly better chance of winning one of 10 German tier V premium planes, the Messerschmitt Me209 V.

Winners will be chosen at random and multiple playthroughs of the training missions will not result in multiple entries in the contest. Wargaming also notes that if you completed the training missions prior to the contest, you can still replay them now for a chance to win.

If there’s one thing the Russian game company Wargaming knows how to do, it’s how to be bombastic.

Wargaming’s E3 booth this year is a spectacle — a geometric black space of sleek lines and cool hardware. The main stage has huge presentations every so often, complete with CGI cinematics filled with explosions and a presenter who is far too enthusiastic about Wargaming’s products. Most tellingly, booth babes are everywhere, with the highest concentration being right outside the show hall entrance. It’s a sight from a different time, and one we moved through in order to get interviews with Wargaming’s staff.

Wargaming showed us three of their in-development titles: World of Tanks 360 Edition, World of Warplanes, and World of Warships. Only Tanks and Warplanes were playable; Warships was delegated to a presentation governed over by a constantly-swearing commentator. On the bright side, Warships showed actual, minimally-edited alpha footage rather than CGI, which is a rarity for a game in pre-alpha.

First off was World of Tanks 360 Edition. This is likely to be Wargaming’s next launched title, as the demo we were shown was very full-featured and there were plenty of 360 consoles on the floor demoing the hard work of Wargaming West. It seemed to be the pride and joy of Wargaming this year, which is unusual given how close Warplanes seems to be to completion.

World of Tanks 360 edition is still World of Tanks, with all its vagaries and flaws. Realistic damage models, esoteric statistics, and punishing team-based matches are all still present and accounted for. However, Wargaming is making a push to make World of Tanks 360 more appealing to the console user. In the words of Chris Cook, Wargaming wants World of Tanks on the 360 to be an “eight-foot experience” (as in, played from 8 feet away while looking at a TV) rather than a “two-foot experience.”

One concern the devs had was with accessibility. World of Tanks is a notoriously difficult game to get into and understand. This is partially due to the esotericism of the game mechanics, but it’s mostly because of a lack of a real, effective tutorial to train players in the way of tank combat. Rather, you are expected to learn to play through YouTube videos, spectating, and guides.

Since you can’t browse the internet effectively while playing on the 360 (it’s hard to alt-tab a console, after all), Wargaming is beefing up the in-game tutorials. New tooltips adorn loading screens, and they offer useful information like how to cripple tank treads or what deflection does. Additionally, there is a greater amount of vocal feedback in the game telling you important information, like “You are hidden,” or “You are being flanked.” This focus on accessibility lead to Wargaming’s General Manager to say that Western audiences are used to a bit of coddling; Russians will “crawl through broken glass” to play World of Tanks, but Americans “like to be hand held.”

After World of Tanks 360, we were shown World of Warplanes. It was an in-game demonstration on the beta servers, and as such wasn’t (or didn’t appear to be) staged. The presenter was shot down in both matches.

World of Warplanes is a typical combat flight sim, but it also looks to have a unique model for controlling flight. Rather than going for a more involved, difficulty simulation, players simply point to where they want to go and the plane adjusts automatically. If that’s a bad spot, so be it. It’s an interesting system, and smacks reminiscent of space sims like Freelancer or Descent. It was probably the most interesting aspect of Warplanes.

Plane tiers in Warplanes will apparently function much like tank tiers in Tanks (the higher you go, the stronger they are), with the added caveat that high-tier planes are going to be quite difficult to fly, much like a normal flight sim. They will still be controlled as normal, but their physical handling will be more difficult to compensate for their greater power. Only one control scheme was shown off, but three were mentioned: mouse and keyboard, throttle and joystick, and gamepad.

When asked directly how they were going to handle War Thunder’s attempt to take on their turf, Wargaming’s General Manager Jeremy Munroe mentioned that he looked forward to the competition. Afterward, all the presenters agreed that Wargaming would win such a competition easily, thanks to their established player base and quality of work. However, unlike War Thunder, World of Warplanes has no plans for the near future of integrating with any other Wargaming titles on an in-battle basis. Tanks, Warplanes, and Warship players must all play separate matches.

Finally, there was World of Warships. Set inside a domed theater, the World of Warships presentation was a half hour of CGI and raw pre-alpha footage, narrated by a constantly-swearing member of Wargaming. The number of F-bombs dropped in what was primarily intended to be a professional event was a bit comical. Two battles were shown: one in the Pacific, and one in the North Sea. Both matches had a decent selection of units, ranging from Aircraft Carriers to Destroyers, and a number of game mechanics were shown off including buoyancy, recon planes, and indirect fire.

World of Warships follows the same formula as its two brothers: two teams, one map, duke it out. Where it differs is in execution. Warships is more about recon and indirect fire than Tanks or Warplanes, as every ship except the Aircraft Carrier has the ability to perform indirect shots on enemies. The interface looked a bit clunky, but being pre-alpha, it was excusable.

Unfortunately, it was revealed that Warships would not have small ships (like Patrol Boats) or submarines. Destroyers are the smaller class of vessel the fearless captains can man, and submarines were said to be too oriented for stealth gameplay to be effectively added into the game. This seems like a big issue; many interesting fights come from submarine engagements, and some of the most popular naval simulations – like Silent Hunter – are focused on submarines. It’ll be interesting to see if Wargaming recants on their assertion.

Of all the ships shown for Warships, the Aircraft Carrier looked the most interesting. Instead of being a direct combat boat, the Carrier must send out squadrons of planes in an RTS-style interface to attack other ships and planes. This interface appeared to be quite simple: select squadrons, send them on the attack. It’s the part of Warships I’m personally most looking forward to, if just because it’s different.

Finally, all three games will have unified accounts and metagames. Specifically, you will be able to use your Wargaming account in all three games, premium carries over between titles, and the Clan Wars system will take into account all three games rather than being separate. However, there are no plans to merge them, so players looking for a full battlefield simulation will be disappointed.

Wargaming’s showing wasn’t stellar – there was a distinct lack of Gas Powered Games – but it wasn’t awful either. Each of the games shown had promise, and Wargaming seemed genuinely excited to talk about their work. Despite all of the fanfare – of which there was plenty, as Wargaming loves to throw a party – developers and staff gave some great, human insights into their games. That’s a rarity at E3, and it’ll be great to see how that personability moves over to the management of their new titles.

It seems another potentially big MMO is following the “World of” naming scheme: World of Warplanes, the upcoming arcade flight sim from World of Tanks developer Wargaming.net. At E3 2012, we had the opportunity to chat with Victor Kislyi, Wargaming.net CEO, and Vladislav Belozerov, World of Warplanes Project Manager, about the company and its games as Vlad demoed Warplanes for us.

Check out the full interview, below.

Game Front: What is Warmgaming.net working on that has you most excited?

Victor Kislyi:

Today we officially announced the Wargaming.net web service. It’s going to be a web-based portal with hundreds of options which hosts all three games, with statistics, tournaments, notifications… You’ll have a single account. It’s pretty much like Battle.net — with similar functionality. It’ll be a unified service for World of Tanks, World of Warplanes, and eventually World of Battleships.

GF: Will in-game currency be able to translate throughout all three games through this platform?

Victor:

It’s your gold, it’s the money you invested, so yeah, why not use it for all three games? But what is more exciting for us is the experience points. So if you are an old World of Tanks player, you can get a lot of extra experience points that you don’t need for your tank number 110 — I, myself, have 80 tanks — so maybe I can save some XP, which I earn in battle, and when World of Warplanes comes out, I will immediately level up to a top-tier Russian plane. You’ll have additional freedom about where to earn and where to spend the experience points.

GF: World of Tanks supports up to 15 vs. 15 players; how many players per battle in World of Warplanes?

Victor:

It will be 15 vs. 15.

GF: What were some of the unique challenges you faced when taking gameplay to the skies?

Victor:

The biggest challenge for us would have to be the controls — balancing casual versus hardcore. There are a lot of hardcore hardcore flight simulators, but those games really don’t get that many players. But if we go too casual, guys like you and me will not take that seriously. So the biggest challenge was to present a historically accurate aircraft battle sim, but to make it appealing.

For instance, you start off already airborne — why? Do you really want to spend fifteen minutes just taking off, then, after a successful mission, landing? Maybe yes, but we think if you try it this way, you’ll forget about the excitement of landing. We think that in the same amount of time, we can have two or three more battles — the action; firing, manoeuvring, things like this. So we are sacrificing some historical accuracy where we can add a lot of fun elements.

GF: On land, you can design a map that funnels players to certain hot spots; in the sky, how do you get players to find each other?

Victor:

We have the minimap, we have indicators… There are probably things we still need to add, like the enemy plane’s will be indicated by the arrow on the edge of the screen. There are a lot of indication tricks that we have to try out so that we can implement the most successful one.

Vlad Belozerov:

The main thing you generally use is the minimap. That shows you and other nearby planes. Then we have a red indicator that shows the direction of the closest enemy, and an orange triangle that shows the direction to your locked target. Also, when you take damage, there is a red indication which shows from which side you’ve been hit.

GF: I noticed Vlad’s wing is damaged — is that just aesthetic?

Victor:

The damage model affects the flight model. When your wing is hit, for example, you cannot turn that well, as your plane tends to go in one direction.

GF: In what ways does the environment play a part in the action?

Victor:

Unlike many other simulations, we try to make it a little unrealistically low to the ground. There are hills, canyons, high-rise buildings… We also have clouds. If you jump in the clouds, enemies can’t see you. When you’re facing the sun, visibility is limited. So there’s a lot of tactical environmental elements. We didn’t just make it high-in-the-sky dog fighting. There are also ground targets — like AA guns to take out, fuel tanks, tanks driving on the ground, trains… There will also be different lighting conditions — for instance dawn, or dusk.

Let me tell you this. I truly believe that the budget for this game will probably be bigger than all air simulation games in the history of mankind — combined. We will do whatever it takes to make it the most enjoyable, the most massive airplane game. We’re investing millions and millions of man hours and dollars to make this game the most enjoyable warplane simulation ever.

GF: Maps obviously have to have boundaries; what happens when you reach a map boundary in the sky?

Vlad:

As you start to approach the border, you get warnings. If you keep going, the autopilot starts to gently turn your plane to bring you back into the map. You’ll never see the border, of course — you’ll always see the ground, the horizon.

GF: I noticed that there are AI ships in World of Warplanes, and aircraft carriers in World of Battleships. Will we see a crossover game where players can control either a plane or a ship?

Victor:

Not in the near future. Maybe a few years from now we’ll think about combining them; however, now, we’re concentrated on making a very enjoyable tank game by providing continued updates that’ll make our players happy, the best of the best warplane simulation experience, and a really great battleship, naval battle environment. And they will all be combined through this Wargaming.net service. Clan war battles are also a priority.

GF: Are you concerned about your games competing with each other?

Victor:

I can imagine a situation where someone, after two years of playing World of Tanks, may get a little bored, so he’ll be able to switch to Warplanes for a bit. Or maybe during certain days of the week, he’ll play Battleships, or if he had a Redbull, he’ll play Warplanes. We’re not afraid of cannibalizing — there will be synergy, not cannibalization.

GF: Do you think F2P is the way of the future for PC gaming?

Victor:

Absolutely, and for any kind of gaming. Google is free, Facebook is free, even your cell phone, barring some minor down payments, is free, so yes — it’s the future for all kinds of gaming. The box — retail — will not survive. Downloads for money will not survive. Because of piracy, because there’s so much… Quality. If you look at games coming out of China, you see multi-million dollar budget games that are improved upon every month after launch, and they’re free.

So yes, free to play is the future, and we proudly consider our company to be one of the pioneers in free to play, quality games. In the past two years, the market of global online games has grown like crazy, and we’re part of this growth.

GF: When you first started working on WoT, did you have any idea how big and successful it would become?

Victor:

Frankly speaking, no. We were so many times surprised about how our business targets were not met — in a good way; they were overwhelmed. We’ve been making computer games for probably the last 14 years; we made 13 titles before WoT, so we earned our way into this successful position.

GF: What were the most important lessons you learned that led to your success?

Victor:

You don’t do publisher deals. As soon as there’s an independent developer and a publisher, no matter what you sign, very rarely do you become real partners. There are always business terms, and deadlines, and the money involved that they have… There’s always a war — a quiet war or a loud war — between a publisher and developer. So that’s why, with World of Tanks, not only did we develop it, but we decided, “Hey, we don’t want to give it to any publishers, because then it’ll be the same as before.” So you have to be your own publisher. And of course, money-wise, you don’t have to share with anyone. You hold all the risks — the infrastructure, the PR, the marketing — but if you’re successful, then you don’t have to split the shares.

GF: Anything big coming up in the future for WoT?

Victor:

Yes, World of Tanks 7.4. We finally have two big game modes coming out. One is Assault, where one team is defending, and the other one has to take the base. And the other one is Encounter; there’s one point in the middle, and you have to take it.

You probably have noticed that we’ve changed our logos and branding, with our new motto, “Let’s battle.” That’s what we do. No storyline, no quests… Let’s battle.

]]>http://www.gamefront.com/world-of-warplanes-a-bigger-budget-than-every-flight-sim-ever-combined/feed/5World Of Warplanes Will Include Dragons Oh Wait April Foolshttp://www.gamefront.com/world-of-warplanes-will-include-dragons-oh-wait-april-fools/
http://www.gamefront.com/world-of-warplanes-will-include-dragons-oh-wait-april-fools/#commentsMon, 02 Apr 2012 00:05:52 +0000Ross Lincolnhttp://www.gamefront.com/?p=159654But maybe this ought to be a real thing. Because it's kind of awesome.

In a press release emailed on March 30th, Wargaming.net announced the exiting news that in addition to the various historically accure planes, the upcoming World of Warplanes will also include historically accurate dragons.

“Wargaming.net, the award-winning online game developer and publisher, is proud to announce the next faction to join the current set of nations in the highly-anticipated flight combat action MMO World of Warplanes: dragons!”, the statement reads, promising that these ‘majestic’ creatures will be playable when the game goes beta later this year. At first, the tech tree will include only 12 dragons. However, more than 60 will eventually be included, each with upgradable characteristics like fire intensity level, number of claws, and more.

“Adding dragons into World of Warplanes has been one of the most challenging aspects of game development so far,” said Wargaming.net CEO Victor Kislyi. “Dragons are so different from planes; they are much more edgy and self-willed, but if you put in just a little more effort, they will serve you well. I’m happy we’ve finally announced them!”

Obviously, the fact that this announcement came out on March 30th and not on April 1st means it’s completely true and not at all just a gag. Also, I am not at all totally gullible as a result of too many mimosas in anticipation of Game of Thrones season 2. Not at all.

In all seriousness, I kind of love how elaborate April Fools Day jokes are getting. Like the video Wargaming.net produced announcing this new ‘feature’. Enjoy.